Many forms of crowd-unifying entertainment take place at sporting events, concerts, or other like stadium events with large crowds. Such activities include “the wave” phenomenon, flashing colored display cards, and the like. “The wave” refers to a spontaneous, concerted motion of attendees located in a stadium. This concerted motion, “the wave,” occurs when persons in one section of the stadium quickly stand up in unison, throwing their arms up into the air, and quickly, in unison, sit back down in their seats. The next adjacent seating section of the stadium, usually in a clockwise circulating direction, then quickly repeats the same collective body action behavior. This collective human behavior continues in one direction around the stadium and may continue for several revolutions around the entire stadium seating area. The effect of this collective human behavior creates the visual appearance of a waveform pattern.
Some stadium events also include colored display cards in each patron's seat. The display card is colored, decorated, or unique in some manner, and is used in concerted motion at a particular point, such as a sporting event halftime show, or an opening ceremony, to provide a crowd-based visual display, visible from great distances. This display, through the use of differing colors amongst the cardholders, presents some visually pleasing image to views on the opposite side of the stadium or to a television audience, for example, such as from an airplane, helicopter, blimp, or the like.
Both “the wave” and the use of colored display cards are visible from great distances. Whether viewers in an aircraft or viewers at opposite ends of a stadium, all should be able to observe the crowd-based display. Such events or activities are provided, or spontaneously happen, to entertain both participants and observers in a context that only large groups of people in a stadium seating arrangement can provide.
Unfortunately, these traditional crowd-based displays suffer from a number of deficiencies. For example, such displays are usually static in terms of content. During “the wave,” in which a person is either seated or standing, the person remains in the same seat location within the stadium. During a display card stadium event, a display card is either visibly shown or stowed under the stadium seat. The participant does not walk about freely in the stadium holding the display card. Additionally, an event such as “the wave” occurs only a few times during an event, and the display card exercise usually occurs only once, such as at a sporting event halftime show or an opening ceremony.
It is therefore desirable to have an apparatus and method by which crowd-based displays are created, wherein a stationary or mobile patron's hand-held light-emitting apparatus comprises one of many independently-moving pixels in the display. Furthermore, it is desirable to have methods and control sources by which the display sequence of colored lights is controlled.
Known in the art are devices that incorporate the use of LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, in their construction to provide a hand-held colorful light display. An LED is a semiconductor device that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light. Known LED products in the marketplace that provide a hand-held colorful light display include a spinner ball LED wand (http://www.clubthings.com/product1069.html), a laser pointer and multi-color LED wand (http://www.yoyostore.com/laspoinmulco.html), an LED message wand to display any one of eight pre-programmed or custom light up messages (http://www.lightgod.com/store/product.asp?catid=1&subcatid=962&id=3608), a lighted LED wand, comprised of a multi-color nine-inch lighted flashing wand, (http://www.windycitynovelties.com/EPaysoft/Cart/product.asp?ITEM_ID=7372&CatID=0), and a strober wand (http://www.technomoves.com/strober.html).
Patent applications known in the art that include the use of LEDs for colorful visual displays or that include LEDs in a hand-held device, such as a flashlight or medical instrument include, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0007672, filed by Benson et al. and published on Jan. 12, 2006, disclosing a user-wearable LED display. A user wearable display apparatus contains a light source that emits light and is positioned so as to illuminate a design on the surface of the display apparatus and attract viewers. The display apparatus also contains a power supply that provides power to the light source.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0040773, filed by Lebens et al. on Feb. 24, 2005, discloses a method and apparatus for hand-held portable LED illumination. The illumination source includes a plurality of LEDs, and an electrical circuit that selectively applies power from the DC voltage source to the LED units, wherein the illumination source is suitable for hand-held portable operation. In some embodiments, the electrical circuit further includes a control circuit for changing a proportion of light output having the first characteristic color spectrum output to that having the second characteristic color spectrum output, and that drives the LEDs with electrical pulses at a frequency high enough that light produced has an appearance to a human user of being continuous rather than pulsed. Still another aspect provides an illumination source including a housing including one or more LEDs; and a control circuit that selectively applies power from a source of electric power to the LEDs, thus controlling a light output color spectrum of the LEDs.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0057919, filed by Wong et al. on Mar. 17, 2005, discloses a method and apparatus for illuminating lighting elements in one or more predetermined patterns. A preferred frequency controlled lighting system implementing this method includes a motion switch, a controller, and lighting elements. The motion switch creates an activation signal in response to movement of the motion switch, the activation signal indicating at least one of duration of electrical engagement or frequency of electrical engagement within the motion switch. The controller detects the activation signal generation and uses a signal analysis system to analyze the activation signal. Preferably, a short signal circuit within the signal analysis system detects when the duration of electrical engagement is less than or equal to a predetermined duration level, a long duration circuit within the signal analysis system detects when the duration of electrical engagement is greater than the predetermined duration level, and a fast frequency circuit detects when the frequency of electrical engagement is greater than a predetermined frequency threshold. In response to properties of the activation signal, the signal analysis system commands a pattern generator to illuminate the lighting elements in one or more predetermined patterns.
While these and other devices and methods have attempted to solve the above mentioned problems, none have provided for a light-emitting apparatus and a method by which a crowd-based display is created wherein each light-emitting apparatus comprises one of many independently-moving pixels in the crowd-based display. Therefore, a need exists for such a device and associated methods of manufacture and use.